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Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Must Innovate but Cautiously

Recently I have attended many events on entrepreneurial innovations including last one at FICCI (8th September, New Delhi); the theme of conference was Making India an Innovation Hub, which was quite noble from the perspective of spurting faith in entrepreneurial potential in the country. Indeed innovation is imperative in every domain in life since it has creative bearings over a potential target, so it’s a sort of energy that’s capable to harness the skills along with imparting conduce ground for entrepreneurship. Without even a bit of hassle it could be said that presently Indian business seems badly thirsty for the drops of innovation; India being a billion plus size country with its sub-Saharan infrastructure erstwhile remained focused on conservative and cumbersome path of development which normally came out with many depressive impediments.

Choosing the path of mixed economy, Indian economy have been consistently coping up with ideological fractions in political- economic circle that caused for its sluggish development until ushering into phase of liberalization in early nineties, somehow in compelled situation.Crux of the matter is either Socialism or Capitalism let allowed a national economy to grow in its fundamental fervors unlike the Indian experiment with mixed economy which with many languishing political decisions remained standing in bizarre situation. Any way it doesn’t mean to say that concept of mixed economy was proven failure in Indian circumstances instead its maligned political handling that undermine the potential growth of Public sector enterprises which further dampen the socialistic temptations of economy.

Despite such frills some Public sectors enterprise have proved their worth; performances of Public sectors banks including Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) could be counted in these lists as they more or less remains unaffected through global financial crisis. Here it may takes into long introspection that how these banks remain unaffected? But a simple answer could be that these banks were less integrated with the fluctuating global businesses albeit it wasn’t an innovation or any counter of such propositions; it was merely an act of inaction regarding the myopic financial routes like hedge funds and other derivatives product that finally saved them from losses. Sometimes inaction is better than action as in this case but that approach shouldn’t be germed in minds for all actions.

Some time back,United Kingdom released the Turner’s review report on financial meltdown which lay out the main themes behind the acute financial failures in western countries.As per the report that mechanized experiments in the name of innovation and blind move for creating bigger entities was the major cause of failures for financial sector players in Europe and U.S.A. Joseph Stiglitz expressed similar contention that bigger entities needs bigger supervision and regulation without having such backups sometimes makes business vulnerable for failure; of course efficiency maters more than the giant sizes of a business entities in most of conditions. A true innovation can be panache for empowerment of its practitioners besides fuelling growth in productive activities; there are many subtle experiments in our daily life that deserves more proper consideration for its institutional and professional advancement from the respective policy makers.

Persons like Prof. Anil Gupta (IIMA, National Innovation Foundation, SRISTI and Honey Bee Network)is doing exemplary jobs to conserve and retrieve the extinct traditional knowledge and infuse lease for curious observations from bottom of pyramids. Campaign like Universal Financial Access (UFA) evangelizing by eminent banker Mr. Sanjaya Bhargava and others like minded peoples for attaining the goal of complete financial inclusion in early next decades, its theme (Billions through innovations) presents a sanguine picture for innovation that reflect the rosy outcomes of innovative thoughts. It’s quite alluring to feel that Mr. Sanjaya Bhargava has entered in such arena after leaving his phenomenal stint in City bank where he heading for corporate charges that have very few similarity with such grass rooted and non-profit movement; he is a man of focus and he deserves applauds for such though innovation.

Mr. Mahendra Pratap is next name (President, iMFAST and co-founder NCR Tech Group) in this series; he is similarly the doyen of innovation who relentlessly keeps striving for technological innovation in Indian financial sector with motives to spread its easy reach to the common masses. Spreading of ATM network including with some bio-metric applications, electronic payment to workers of NREGA, door banking, mobile banking,24@7 banking etc are some outcomes of meticulous innovation that maximizing faith in financial inclusion movement. Innovative ideas in thoughts, services and action are very essential for encouraging and rationalizing socio- psychological perceptions and its development among the all age groups since innovation hardly need any specific age to materialize. Like many other positive ideas, an innovative proposition also requires some rudimentary cautiousness that must be followed to avoid any future chaos; what we have witnessed through financial sector failures in U.S.A and all over the world. Positive restraint would even enhance the capability of an innovation… we must deliberate under our own imposed disciplines that would further take us into an ethical level playing field.

1 comment:

Dear Atul, This is Mahendra Pratap, one of the innovators ,who lead conceptualization and development of iMFAST, a solution for enabling rural banking. A copy of your article is pasted below. I suggest we meet some time and discuss if there are synergies in future.I have now shifted to Delhi after my retirement from current assignment and have some ideas.I look forward to talking to you. Regards,MP(Mahendra Pratap)

About Me

Atul K Thakur is a Journalist, Writer and Policy Practitioner, with specialisation in the interface of politics and economics. His interests of writing and research is quite diverse and reaches to the areas of international affairs, with special focus on South Asia.
As an author/editor, his latest book is "India since1947:Looking Back at a Modern Nation"/Niyogi Books, an anthology on modern India. Now, he is editing the next volume with keeping in mind, India in future -- and writing a book that will have bearing on the contemporary political and social history of South Asia.
As a journalist/columnist, he has written for publications include: The Hindu, The Pioneer, The Kathmandu Post, The Daily Star, Businessworld, Governance Now, Tehelka, The Friday Times, The Himalayan Times, Mainstream, Seven Sisters Post.
Contact: M: +91-9873160118 / summertickets@gmail.com.